1997-11-19 04:00:00 PDT BAY AREA -- The tree sat down with the bear yesterday, face to face, and it was not pretty.

The tree does not like the bear. The bear does not like the tree.

"He's obnoxious," said the tree, pointing at the bear.

The bear, asked whether the tree is obnoxious, nodded vigorously. The bear is not allowed to speak.

In the waning hours before the 100th Big Game between Cal and Stanford, the mascots from the two schools agreed to meet in San Francisco, sit across from each other at a conference table and discuss their differences. Their differences, which are many and profound, last year led to the tree being affectionately dismembered by Cal fans after the football contest was over.

From the first moment, the peace conference was a disaster.

The bear refused to shake hands with the tree. The tree refused to shake hands with the bear. Between the two is much bad blood and bad sap. In addition to last year's mini-mauling, the two mascots were actually taken into custody by police after some good- natured taunting led to some not- so-good-natured wrestling at a 1995 basketball game.

Charges were never filed, however, and the tree and bear were chastised and released.

"Look at the statistics," said the tree. "There have been four or five attacks on the tree over the years. This is hazardous work, you might say."

Some of the tension between the two mascots is show biz. Some of it is something else.

Throughout their half-hour meeting, the two mascots made predictable, disparaging remarks about one another. The bear motioned for the tree to take a swing at him. That was all part of the act.

But the two mascots also declined to look at one another. They avoided touching. They sat at opposite sides of a long table, by choice. The bear, particularly, avoided pointing his eye

holes in the direction of the tree.

That was not part of the act. The kids inside the suits are not good enough actors to pull it off.

And there was a silence that could not entirely be explained by the bear's inability to talk.

Part of it, said the tree, is the nature of the tree-vs.-bear paradigm. The bear is a traditional mascot, but the tree is an "anti-mascot" designed to make fun of not only bears but beavers, wolves, husky dogs and Trojan soldiers in their funny hats.

"The tree's job is to mock traditional mascots, just like the Stanford band's job is to mock traditional bands," said the tree. "The tree is satirical. Regular mascots like Oski find the tree threatening."

Oski, asked if he felt threatened, shook his head and seemed to feel the burden of the ground rules that forbid him to reply in words. He looked at his spokesman, who travels with the bear wherever he goes, and pointed at his mouth.

"Oski has more class than that," said the spokesman, who is not allowed to identify himself. "Oski is traditional. Oski is not ashamed of being traditional."

Oski nodded.

The person inside the Oski suit, said the spokesman, does not exist. Only Oski is real.

Oski nodded.

By contrast, the person inside the tree is allowed to say who he is. He is Matt Merrill, a 20-year-old biology major who is not ashamed to reveal that his mother helped make his costume and that spending so much time being the tree is dragging down his biology grades.

Over the years, both mascots have changed with the times. In the old days, Cal used real bears, which were not environmentally correct, and Stanford used real Indians, which were not politically correct.

Cal dropped the live bears in 1941. Stanford retired the Indians in 1972.

On Saturday, unlike last year, the tree will be on his home turf, with four or five bodyguards to protect life and limb. The bear will bring its own bouncers to Palo Alto.

After half an hour of phlegmatic peacemaking, it was clear that neither mascot could stand to be in the same room with the other, and the person inside the stuffy Oski costume could no longer endure being cooped up. He signaled to his handler that fresh air was required forthwith.

"We need to roll. Oski's getting hot."

The tree replied that was fine with him.

"This is the closest I've ever been to Oski," said the tree. "I can't say I've enjoyed it."

Neither shook hands. When the elevator arrived, the bear scrambled in first. The tree lagged behind.